


what's in a name

by gracedbybattle



Series: unimaginable light [4]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Adopted Children, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family Fluff, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Married Couple, Parental Kanan Jarrus, caleb dume - Freeform, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:10:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23804374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracedbybattle/pseuds/gracedbybattle
Summary: Kanan glances up from the datapad to the sight of his son approaching with a holo in hand. An older holo, one of the models that aren’t even made anymore. There’s a title at the bottom in small letters that spell outDume, Caleb.He hasn’t thought about Caleb Dume in years.
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Kanan Jarrus, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Series: unimaginable light [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699963
Comments: 10
Kudos: 115





	what's in a name

“Dad? What’s this?”

Kanan glances up from the datapad to the sight of his son approaching with a holo in hand. An older holo, one of the models no longer made. It’s distinctive, a jagged dark shape with an outdated servo that he instantly recognizes. It’s illuminated, a picture of a small boy with wide eyes shown projected. There’s a title at the bottom, small letters that spell out  _ Dume, Caleb.  _

He hasn’t thought about Caleb Dume in years. 

“Where did you get that?” he asks more out of curiosity than anything else. He clicks the pad off and sets it to the side, opening his arms as an invitation. Ezra scampers to his side, crawling up into his lap. His bony knees are sharp and he makes another mental note to up Ezra’s protein again. He wraps his arms around his son and they both stare at the old holo, held aloft in Ezra’s little hand. 

Ezra shrugs, noncommittal. “I found it. There were a lot of them in a box.” He looks up curiously at Kanan with a familiar expression. He and Hera’s eight year old is by the far the most curious and inquisitive child he knows. When he’d confided as such in Depa, his old master had nearly laughed herself sick.  _ Oh, how the tables have turned _ , she’d chuckled at him. 

“It’s a long story,” he says, searching for the right words to begin. He’s known for years that this conversation was coming. 

“Like, Master Windu long or Master Yoda long?” Ezra asks, undaunted. 

He chuckles at the comparison. “More like Master Windu.” He leans his head on top of Ezra’s own. 

“Caleb Dume is, was, me,” he admits and Ezra cranes his head to look at him, putting some distance between them. His big blue eyes are confused. 

“How?” he asks, his favorite word of late. 

“Caleb Dume is the name I was born with,” he elaborates, reaching out a hand to scoop the holo from Ezra’s hand. It’s getting old now. The image isn’t as crisp or sharp as it should be, fuzzy around the edges with age. 

“When I was very young, my birth parents discovered I was Force sensitive. That’s when they surrendered me to the Temple. To be raised as a Jedi.”

“Before the war?”

“Before the war,” he agrees. “My biological parents live here, on Coruscant. They’re a prominent Coruscanti family and very involved with politics.” He’s trying to come up with the easiest way to say this, in a way that doesn’t paint the people who gave birth to him in a bad light.

He doesn’t resent his blood family, he never has, not even when he learned the truth all those years ago. But he knows how it sounds, especially to an eight year old, and Ezra is more perceptive than most. 

“When they gave me to the Temple, my mother was already pregnant again,” he explains. “They asked the Temple to give me a new name, a different name since I was no longer their son.”

Ezra wrinkles his nose. He doesn’t understand. “But it was yours. How can they give it to someone else?”

He sighs. This is the part that he doesn’t know how to say kindly. So he just says it plainly. “Caleb, my name, was an old family name. They wanted to give it to the new baby.”

Ezra's eyes widen. He fists a hand in his father’s sleeve, tugging in indignation. “They gave your name away?”

He shrugs, bringing a hand up to lay over Ezra’s own. “I don’t remember it. I was very young.” He thinks back to that time but he can never recall much. Not beyond the shapeless memories of the creche. “Master Yoda and Nu gave me my name. I don’t remember ever being anyone but me.”

“Kanan Jarrus,” Ezra rolls the name around on his tongue. Kanan smiles at him and for a moment, they stare at the holo in silence. No more than a moment though. Ezra is never still for long. 

“Dad?”

“Hmm?” Kanan brings a hand up to card through Ezra’s hair. It’s getting long again, the ends curling. They’ll need to get it cut soon.

“Why isn’t my last name Jarrus?”

And oh, this is the one he should have seen coming. At least he’s better prepared for this conversation. Caleb Dume is an old ghost, one he’s mainly forgotten, but this is familiar. 

“Well, when you were born, your mother and I had to decide what your name would be,” and Ezra nods. “Your mother’s clan, Syndulla, is small now, especially since her brother died. We gave you her name to carry on her house.”

Ezra mulls on that for a moment, Kanan can almost see him turning the thought over and over in his head, inspecting it for more questions. He’s not sure how well the idea of lineage and house customs translate to eight year olds. It was a while before Kanan understood the importance of Rylothian clans. He’s done his best to be a student of Ryloth customs since he was Hera were married, but sometimes he still finds himself lacking. 

“Is it like the kalikori?”

Kanan blinks and feels a bit dense for not just starting there. They’ve always imparted the importance of the kalikori to Ezra. 

“Exactly like the kalikori.” Smart kid.

Ezra frowns, something still on his mind. “Then why do you go by Jarrus? All the other Jedi call you Jarrus. But I’m a Syndulla. Aren’t you a Syndulla too?”

“Yes, in name,” Kanan explains, gathering Ezra in his arms and picking him up. It’s not as easy as it once was, but Ezra is still small for his age, no matter how much they feed him. He’s easy to carry. 

When he and Hera married, they kept their last names professionally. It was easier than trying to explain why Captain Syndulla and Jedi Knight Jarrus were now someone else. Their family names were a different matter. 

It was never a question whose name to list on the marriage documents. Kanan had no connection to his title past its significance as a Knight of the Jedi Order. ‘Jarrus’ is not part of any line. But Hera’s family name is special and he’d wanted to honor that. 

He’d wanted to show, to Hera and to Cham, that he respected their culture and their family history. That he loved Hera, enough to take a new name, a new identity to be with her. They were a Syndulla household, but Kanan retained the title ‘Jarrus’ as a Knight. 

It was simple in his own mind, but perhaps a bit more confusing for a child. 

“When you mom and I joined our houses, I took her name. It’s mine, the same as it’s yours. But I kept Jarrus as my name in practice because it’s the name I was knighted with. It’s my...Jedi name,” he struggles for a way to impart the significance. They haven’t gone into the details yet with Ezra about the history of the Order and what it means. It’s an unpleasant story, filled with the horrors of the Clone Wars, and he’s not yet mature enough to truly appreciate it.

It's hard to explain without that context that once this wasn’t an issue because Jedi didn’t marry. They didn’t join houses to take new names because it was forbidden. The time to explain that is coming. But he thinks he’s going to let the older masters in Ezra’s youngling classes teach the basics of that history, and he can fill in the cracks. 

“So, you're a Knight Jarrus but also a Syndulla?” Ezra fumbles and Kanan nods. 

“In a way, yes,” he says. He props Ezra against his hip and walks them out onto the balcony. He sinks into his favorite chair on the terrace, the one big enough that he can fold all his limbs into it if he wants. Ezra wraps his arms around him, settling into his lap. 

The sun is setting, casting brilliant colors against the sky. It’s a beautiful evening, the kind he thanks the Force he gets to see. Ezra loves the balcony as much as he and Hera do. Syndulla’s have a love for the sky. 

“What about my other name? Bridger, Ezra Bridger Syndulla. What does that mean?”

That part is easy. “Because Bridger was your birth mother's name, and we wanted to honor it.”

“Oh,” Ezra says and he seems satisfied. Kids don’t tend to over complicate things if you give them the strict truth, something Kanan is grateful for. It helps stem the stream of questions. 

“I like it,” he says. 

“Like what?”

“My name,” and Ezra smiles at him, his little face lit up in honesty. “I like the name you gave me.”

Kanan chuckles, pulling his son against his side into a half hug. “I’m glad,” he says and lets his feelings leak in the Force. Lets them envelop the Force bond with his son, fusing it with feelings of love and affection. He can feel Ezra reaching back to him, clumsy but earnest in his attempt. 

They’ve been working on refining their connection, but that comes with lots of prescribed meditation. Ezra is a little too restless right now for prolonged meditation, though he tries. It’s getting there. 

“Dad?” Ezra’s voice pipes up again. 

“Hmm?” he hums back, still immersed in their connection. 

“Did you ever meet your real parents?”

He almost winces before he can stop himself though the memory isn’t painful. Just awkward. “Once, I did. When Master Billaba and I were at the Senate for a hearing.”

They had looked like him, the same tan skin and dark hair. He has his mother's eyes. He had felt immeasurably strange standing there in front of his parents and their other children, with Depa’s hand on his shoulder. It wasn’t a sadness, exactly. Just a strange sentiment. Like a glimpse into how different his own life could have been. 

“What were they like?” Ezra asks. 

He runs a hand through his son’s hair, brushing the long bangs back from his eyes. “Strangers. They were kind, and polite. But they were strangers.” 

He wants to make sure he hears these next words, that he’s looking into Ezra’s eyes when he says them. 

“This is our family,” he says. “You, your mom, me, even Chopper. You’re the family I chose. In name and everything else.” He presses a kiss to the side of his son’s head, just a brush of lips against the skin at his hairline. 

“And I love you. More than anything.” He can feel a thread of joy touch the air around them, sweet and sharp. He can’t tell who it’s coming from, not really. It could be him or Erza. Maybe both of them. 

Ezra leans back against him, his head falling into the crook of Kanan’s shoulder. The way he used to always burrow in as a baby. Kanan leans his head against him, sending a steady flow of affection through their bond. He rubs a hand down Ezra’s arm in a steady rhythm, his gaze scanning the sky. He can feel Ezra in his own mind, glowing like a beacon. They sit in a rare moment of quiet before Ezra speaks up.

“Did they have a son? Your mom and dad?”

Kanan laughs a little at that, very soft. “No, actually. Two daughters. Both younger than me.”

“Did they name them Caleb?”

“I don’t think so kiddo,” he says with a small smile.

“Maybe we can use it one day,” Ezra says and Kanan is about to ask what he means when he continues. “You know, if I have a little brother. I like it.”

Kids. Always saying exactly what’s on their mind.

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Kanan gets out, mind sputtering a little at the idea of another child. He isn’t opposed to the idea, he just hadn’t thought about it. Ezra is more than enough for them. He and Hera never planned for kids, exactly. Ezra was a gift, meant to be a part of their family. Maybe someone else might be too. 

He begins to stand, shoving the thought from this mind to dwell on later. “C’mon,” he says and without warning, scoops Ezra up, turning him upside down and letting his son’s surprised laughter wash over him like a wave.

“Dad!” His arms flail without purchase, long bangs falling in his eyes. Kanan lets him hang for a second and then rights him and sets him down. Ezra is grinning at him, breathless and playful, blue eyes bright. He leaps at his dad in a faux attack, Kanan easily dodges and locks him under his arm in a gentle hold. Ezra laughs, a bright and happy sound, and Kanan chuckles.

“Let’s get supper started before your mom gets home.” He tousles his son's hair and Ezra tries to sneak under his hand, battling him away. He releases Ezra from under his arm, squeezes his hand once onto his son’s shoulder and watches him scamper inside ahead of him.

He pockets the holo, resolving to find a better place to keep it later. He means what he said. The Dume’s are his family in blood, little more. He’s been someone else ever since. Caleb Dume isn’t gone. He’s just different. He’s Kanan. Kanan Jarrus, Caleb Dume, Kanan Syndulla. They are all one in the same. That’s all that really matters. 


End file.
